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Selling Again Hits Most Sectors, but Late Rally Cuts Losses

Broad-based selling continued to afflict practically every sector of the market as the weakness in airlines and energy shares spread into defense and basic materials issues, but many groups managed to come off their session lows as a late-day rally swept through the market.

Airlines mostly slid following a brief reprieve Tuesday, but many of the stocks closed above their lows of the day.
AMR(AMR), the parent of
American Airlines and
TWA, fell 1% to $19.81, while
Delta Air Lines(DAL - Get Report) rose 0.5% to $23.03.
UAL(UAL - Get Report), the holding company for
United Airlines, dipped 1.8% to $18.65, and
Northwest(NWAC) dropped 9.5% to $11.68.
Continental,
(CAL), which was in positive territory earlier, was back in negative territory, losing 0.7% to $17.59.
US Airways(U) also reversed the positive trend, slipping 5.3% to $5.50.
Southwest(LUV) was up 1.2% to $13.14.

Technology stocks were shaky, but again rebounded from their lows of the session.
Dell(DELL), was off 3.7%,
Microsoft(MSFT), down 1.2%, and
Oracle(ORCL) slipped 1.1%.
Cisco(CSCO) slipped 0.6%, and
Sun Microsystems(SUNW) dropped 1.4%.
Texas Instruments(TXN) shed 1.8%, and
Intel(INTC) lost 5.4%.

Bank of America(BAC) was down 0.1%, while
Citigroup(C) fell 1.6%, and
American Express(AXP) fell 4.5%.

Insurers were also hurting Wednesday with the group facing up to $30 billion in claims from last week's attacks, according to
Bloomberg.
ACE(ACE) lost 8.2% to $23.87.
American International Group(AIG) lost 0.5%, while
XL Capital(XL) dropped 4.7% to $65.37.

Energy companies were broadly lower as the price of oil continued to sink. Oil refiner
Sunoco(SUN) was off 4.7% to $34.20, while
Royal Dutch Petroleum(RD) sank 5.2% to $48.05.
Phillips Petroleum(P) slipped 5.1% to $52.84, while
Schlumberger(SLB) dipped 7.1% to $44.20.
Texaco(TX),
Exxon Mobil(XOM),
Kerr-McGee(KMG) and
Halliburton(HAL) were also lower.

Basic materials stocks, which were mixed earlier, were down across the board in the afternoon.
DuPont(DD) and
Westvaco(W) were in the red. DuPont fell 0.8% to $35.08, while paper products company Westvaco dropped 3.7% to $25.35. Chemical company
Hercules(HPC) fell 3.5% to $8.77. Paper products companies such as
Weyerhauser(WY),
Williamette Industries(WLL) were lower, but
Georgia-Pacific(GP) inched up. Steelmakers
Nucor(NUE) and
Allegheny Technologies(ATI) lost ground.

Media stocks, which were trending higher in morning activity, were pushed back, but
AOL Time Warner(AOL) was up 1.6% to $30.95, while newspaper publishers
Tribune(TRB) and
Knight Ridder(KRI) were both down slightly.
Gannett Company(GCI) was off a penny to $60.44.